


Broken Stools and White Paint Pools

by Plandai



Series: 2018 One Phanfic Every Day Until Christmas Challenge [3]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, fuff, mentions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 14:52:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16834822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plandai/pseuds/Plandai
Summary: Dan and Phil have just moved into their new house and have a bit of redecorating to do. Unfortunately, they aren't the best at it.





	Broken Stools and White Paint Pools

Phil was enjoying this more than he liked to admit, Dan, however, was not. They had been to the shops yesterday and picked up all the supplies they would need for redecorating their new house. Dan had had to turn his fiancée away from the rows and rows of colourful wall adornments, they had already decided the kitchen walls were going to be white, he wasn’t going to let Phil besmirch it with a layer of painfully bright blue pain that would not go with the rest of the theme. Phil had then spent the rest of the trip sulking until dan gave in and let him give the lounge a subtler ‘feature wall’. He didn’t think it would look great, but Phil insisted they needed some colour in their lives.

They had moved in about a week ago, and when they had finally finished the long and arduous task of setting up all of their furniture and making sure everything was running smoothly, they had finally gotten around to decorating. They may be rich, but property in London was expensive and getting a house large enough for the both of them and a possible future family had meant picking one that was perhaps not in the best condition. There were no major issues, except maybe a little damp, but nothing they couldn’t fix with a little bit of hard work.

As it were they were trying to get rid of the swathes of peeling paint that appeared to be clinging to the kitchen wall with a bizarre amount of resilience for Dan, and not at all for Phil. Phil was actually having quite a bit of good luck, after having grabbed a flaking piece at the top corner which lead to a sheet of dried paint the size of an A2 piece of paper sliding to the floor, narrowly missing dan. Dan had decided to go the less chaotic route, and gently chip it away with some weird flat metal tool. He was sure anyone who knew the slightest bit about paint or DIY would be horrified by what they were doing, but they weren’t here so they were going to do what they wanted.

Phil managed to peel away another great swath of paint causing dan to groan. He angrily stabbed at the small spot he was attempting to clear but could do nothing to get the off-white liquid off the plaster. Now they were going to have to re-plaster because he had already managed to damage it, leaving little chips in the wall. He looked up to his fiancée who was balanced precariously on a stool, one hand on a cupboard to balance himself, the other running across the wall to send a wear spot. He did so and then the paint came away with a satisfying peeling sound,

“How are you doing that?” he groaned to himself, before going back to aggressively stabbing the wall.

Suddenly there was a crash and a crunch. He jumped around to see that Phil had fallen off the stool, and in falling snapped one of its legs. His eyes went wide, and he rushed over to see if he was ok,

“Oh my God Phil, are you hurt? What did you do?” he said panickily, kneeling by his side.

Phil’s chest started moving up and down quickly, and his breathing went weird. Dan was about to reach for a phone to call for an ambulance when he realised Phil was smiling, not just smiling, laughing. He sat back on his heels, and his face twisted into a frown which he hoped conveyed just how unamused he was, but he probably looked fond as always. Phil didn’t move for a minute before sitting up with a small groan and wincing. Dan gave him a concerned look, but Phil shook his head,

“I’m just a bit winded,” he sighed, stretching out his arms, “I’ll just take a bit of a break,” Dan raised an eyebrow,

“You didn’t just orchestrate that whole thing so you could get out of paint removal, did you?” Phil cocked his head and gave him a disapproving look,

“I don’t mean to be rude Dan,” he exclaimed, “But I have very clearly done a lot more than you,” Dan looked over to the all and sighed as he saw the large bare patches Phil had managed to get the paint off and Dan’s own chipped square in the corner,

“It’s not about who has done more,” dan defended with a sniff, “It’s about the effort put in,” Phil replied by raising an eyebrow at him before slowly limping into the lounge and flopping done into the sofa. Dan watched him go with crossed arms. The stool was now missing a leg, so he couldn’t reach the top of the wall without climbing on top of the countertop.

Dumping his weird tool, he attempted Phil’s approach. Within an hour he had removed most of the paint he was able to reach, but a good metre was left that was unreachable. As they were so tall, they had decided to go with a house with a high ceiling, that seemed like a bit of a bad idea now. He heaved himself up onto the counter, wobbling slightly. With one hand clinging to the top of the cupboards, he began to remove it as far up as he could. He could feel the plaster underneath was damp and felt his shoulder slump as he realised, they were probably going to have to get someone in to fix it. He leant back slightly but lost his balance. Instead of falling he took a big step down, but couldn't hold himself up, and so tipped over backwards onto his arse.

He sat on the floor for a moment, hiding in his own embarrassment, at least nobody had seen him, he just had to hide it from Phil. He couldn’t believe they had both managed to fall, what were the chances? He got up and went to join Phil on the sofa, sulking at how much his bum hurt when he sat down. Phil has switched on the TV and was currently invested in some daytime television program that was on. He acknowledged his fiancée with a small grunt but didn’t look away from the screen. Dan frowned at him. He was in pain, why wasn't Phil paying attention to him, why couldn’t he tell. He didn’t want Phil to know, it was embarrassing, but at this point, he should know when something wasn’t right. Dan could always tell with Phil.

They sat in silence for a moment before Dan gave in,

“I fell over,” he muttered, leaning into Phil. Phil didn’t acknowledge him for a moment when he did it was with a simple ‘huh?’.

“I fell over!” Dan repeated louder this time, “I fell off the fucking countertop,” he let out a huff and growled slightly, mad at himself for admitting it, and at Phil for making him say it twice. Phil giggled,

“Are you ok sweetie,” he replied, a smile tugging at his lips. Dan shrugged, his face flushing red,

“I’m not hurt,” he said sheepishly, “But I can’t believe I fell. This is too dangerous for us! Why can’t we just hire in someone to do this, we have a wedding to plan you know,”

Phil rolled his eyes,

“We’re already going to have to get someone in to fix the damp, but we don’t want to spend more than is needed. As you said, we have a wedding to plan, weddings aren’t cheap,”

Dan crossed his arms and frowned,

“Curse you and you and your stupid logical thinking,” he said moodily, flipping his legs over Phil’s so he was basically sat on top of him.

“Why didn’t we get married before we moved,” he groaned. This time it was Phil’s turn to look sheepish,

“Because I didn’t want to wait to get a dog,” he said with a shrug, “And it will be good for us, we finally have a place we can make our own,” Dan rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop the fond look that came over his face. Damn, he loved that man.

They sat in silence for a little while, the television playing quietly in the background. They both knew they had to carry on with the work, but they were comfortable, and it seemed so difficult. Eventually, Phil tapped dan gently on the shoulder to move him and got to his feet, holding his hand out to help the younger man up. Dan sighed dramatically but took the hand, following Phil into the kitchen somewhat reluctantly. They looked up at the remaining paint but decided to leave it be. That wall needed treating for damp so there was probably little point. Of course, this had made their last several hours of work and injuries completely unnecessary, but they were going to try and ignore that.

So that they did actually feel like they had got something done, they decided to paint over the opposite wall which was in relatively good condition and needed nothing more than a fresh coat. Phil pulled in the large tin of white paint, cracking it open and wincing as some spilt over his hands. He held them out to Dan jokingly who squealed and jumped back. Some of the paint dripped onto the newspaper that had been laid down to protect the floor which leads Dan into giving his fiancée a disapproving look,

“You are going to make a mess,” he said scolding, “And you’re wasting the paint,”

Phil tilted his head to the side and laughed,

“Loosen up Dan, have a bit of fun,” He flicked his fingers, sending a small splodge of pain flying at Dan. It landed on his t-shirt leaving a small white splatter. He knew they were decorating today, he shouldn't have wore a t-shirt he liked so much, but he was a little mad at Phil,

“What the fuck, look what you’ve done to my clothes,” he returned sulkily. Phil rolled his eyes,

“If you don’t want to mess up your clothes, go and get changed into something else, you can wear one of my old t-shirts if you want,”

Dan considered for a moment picking out a t-shirt he knew Phil liked just to piss him off but decided that was a little mean and instead went up to their bedroom to pick out one of his barely used shirts. Their room was surprisingly clean at the moment. Probably because they hadn’t been in it long enough to make too much of a mess and Dan had taken to obsessively cleaning up after Phil. That man was seriously messy, he was lucky Dan loved him so much. Then again it was Dan who said yes when he proposed, so it was sort of his fault they were now stuck together forever, not that either of them really minded. He tugged on Phil’s emoji pyjama bottoms, figuring if he could ruin them, maybe it would stop Phil from wearing the monstrosity, and headed downstairs.

When he walked back into the kitchen he was met with absolute carnage. If the paint had been red, he may have fainted on the spot. The floor was covered in a pool of white paint which Phil was desperately trying to scoop back into the tin with his hands. Phil was coated in paint up to his elbows and his odd corgi socks were completely soaked. They cupboards were covered in little specks and that paintbrush lay propped up against the wall. The brush itself was pretty much the only thing in the kitchen what was untouched, except for the handle which was dripping in viscous liquid,

“What the absolute fuck Phil, I was gone for ten minutes,” he screeched Phil brought the hand to the back of his head in embarrassment, cringing as it caused the cold paint to run down the back of his neck and getting caught in his hair.

“I knocked it over by accident,” he replied quietly. Dan groaned,

“I swear to god Phil you are the clumsiest person I know,”

Phil nodded,

“That seems about right,”

He could have gone off on a massive rant about how Phil was being completely stupid, and he couldn't believe he’d made such a mess. In reality, he was angry, this was going to take a long time to clean up and the thin layer on newspaper meticulously laid down over the floor was not going to do anything to protect it against the torrent Phil had released. The cupboards and clothing were going to be a killer to wash, and he had pretty much wasted £15 worth of paint. Wait why did he care so much about £15, he must have picked up on Phil’s penny-pinching ideas.

Instead of shouting or storming off, however, he dived into the cupboard under the stairs and retrieved a moth-eaten mop. Fighting would not solve anything, he could make Phil make this up to him later, for now, he had to accept that people make mistakes. Phil’s mistakes always ended up making a massive mess, but they were just mistakes. He tossed the mop to Phil and gingerly picked up the paintbrush, walking over to the sink to clean off the handle. Upon returning he brandished it like a mighty sword,

“You clean up this mess,” he directed at Phil, “I’ll paint the wall since it seems to be a little difficult for you,”

Phil sent him a scathing look but got on with slowly clearing up the paint, salvaging whatever he could from the floor. This was the beginning of their new life in this house. They had both got injured, Phil had made a massive mess, and they still hadn’t got anything done, but at least they were happy. With that thought, dan swept the brush across the wall noting that it was already looking very uneven, but not caring all too much. Sure, it was a work in progress, but it was their work in progress.


End file.
